If Only I Had Listened #BehindTheBlogger

If Only I Had Listened… Why is it so hard to listen and learn from other’s experience? Perhaps it is just so hard to distinguish between wise advice and somebody’s opinion. Perhaps we just need to find our own path. What works for me, may not work for you. What works for you may not work for me.

If Only I Had listened When My Grandmother said “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips…”

Well, I am no stranger to the occasional indulgence. I do try to eat healthy most of the time and to balance it with my overall activity. This balance worked reasonably well until I changed every aspect of my lifestyle. I left my job and active lifestyle to move abroad for a relationship.

This was my first time living with a male partner, I had no job, no friends and even familiar foods were not available. During the first four months, I gained about 20 pounds and was the heaviest I ever weighed. I had matched my eating to my partner and was eating some foods I was not familiar with. I was also less active and perhaps at an age where my metabolism decided to slow a little. Perhaps if I listened to my grandmother’s advice then perhaps that wouldn’t have happened.

Which brings me to more advice that I should have listened to from my aunt: “It is easier to keep it off than to lose it”.

I dieted for the first time in my life and was surprised that it took longer to lose the weight than to gain it in the first place. Gaining was just following the path of least resistance. Losing it required making careful, conscious choices and changing my new lifestyle to one that more closely resembled the old.

Which brings me to more advice from my grandmother, “A Stich in Time Saves Nine.”

Yes, my grandmother was very fond of rhyming sayings! Perhaps that is part of why it was so easy to dismiss some of her sayings. And no, she wasn’t just weight obsessed.

This advice I value more and more as the years pass. It is so true, yet I have so much trouble following it. Taking the time to maintain anything we value saves time ultimately. This applies whether it is friendships, romantic relationships, our home, our bodies, or our careers. Any time spent maintaining (or improving) what we value is well spent. It saves us time, stress and heartbreak.

What advice have you received from a grandparent or beloved elder?

Thank you for reading a story from #BehindTheBlogger Hop. Every two weeks a group of bloggers is given a writing prompt. These prompts are very open ended, so our bloggers can write about whatever they desire. The main rule is that their blog post directly relates to the topic of that week. The point of this hop is for our readers to get to know us on a personal level.

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Sam isn't really that "sly", but a college roommate thought so since she had Sly and The Family Stone on nearly constant rotation. When not editing Feeling Fit, Sam can be found pretending to be "sly" and "feeling fit"!